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Visual Communication (MA)

Yanyan Sun

A dilapidated room with a bed and lamp and some furniture

Yanyan Sun is a visual illustrator and art toy designer who has been deeply influenced by animation, comics and games culture since childhood. She graduated from London College of Communication with BA (Hons) Illustration and Visual Media in 2020. Yanyan works often show her spiritual worlds indulged in fantasy. She aims to connect and heal the public with spiritual resonance. 

Yanyan has worked in teams with commercial sponsors at the WF ShangHai Wonder Festival, Beijing International Art and Design Toy Exhibition, and at the Hangzhou inspark, Shenzhen Wenheyou Exhibition. Her work has been exhibited at the HABF Hangzhou Art Book Fair (2021) and the Pure Imagination Metaverse Art Exhibition, in Guangdong (2022).

yanyan looking back from the corridor

I often draw inspiration from the concept of liminal spaces, which blur the boundaries of physical space and fill every door and corridor with infinite possibilities. This strange and unsettling sensation fascinates me. As a result, I merge their essence and the emotional experiences they instil in me into my artistic creations, embarking on a journey to explore the relationship between the individual and space.

In this series of works, I gradually shift my perspective towards 'dwellings'. An individual's interior space exists not only in physical form, but also as a projection of their inner spiritual world. Through a critical lens, I delve into the hidden inner worlds within personal spaces that people currently inhabit.

 
Dissolving Dwellings
Three furniture models in a commercial toy package
Make your home, more you

Whenever my room is surrounded by one novelty after another, be it furniture or decorations, I can't help but experience fleeting happiness. 

Why does decorating our living spaces hold such significance for us? Can this consumer behaviour truly alleviate our inner anxieties? Advertisements and products are like enticing candies thrown by capitalism, constantly luring individuals to shift their life pressures onto material possessions. Yet, material desires remain endlessly insatiable, revealing the struggles of every individual in modern society behind the cycle of continuous consumption.

This project takes a satirical and absurd approach, and uses symbolic language to expose the phenomenon of excessive commodification in contemporary consumerist society from the perspective of domestic spaces. It aims to provoke the audience to reexamine their personal spaces and inner worlds. What is it that we truly need when both the external and internal are engulfed by material desires?

 
An endless corridor,Screenshot of the video

Reflection/Beyond

The world on this shore is false although we live it for real. The world on the other shore, which we never live in, is where the truth lies. The world on this shore has value only through negation, then we must acknowledge the reality of life on this shore, acknowledge that we live here. 

Transition is often based on the premise of a goal, a destination. It is habitual to think that by surviving the mundane monotony of life, we can work our way to a better place and therefore, the ‘transition’ is habitually ignored. The purpose and future are indeed worthy of attention, however, a one-way emphasis on the future implicitly denies our past.  

In this project, I extracted my familiar transitional space and projected visual animations of the changing virtual and real worlds onto a 3D backdrop. The work transports the audience to the endless corridor I created by combining it with music that promotes meditation. I want the audience to be immersed in this psychedelic meditative space, and to rethink life as they watch and wait for their destination.

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Royal College of Art

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